Appendix: 2025 Update Highlights

This appendix summarizes the 2024–2025 revisions that tune the book for new hardware cycles, mixed reality workflows, and AI-assisted production. Use it as a roadmap when tracing which chapters picked up new guidance or when planning lesson updates around the revised material.

Chapter 2 – XR Technologies and Form Factors

• Documented the 2025 form-factor spectrum from PCVR rigs to emerging smart glasses so readers can map interaction trade-offs against compute locations.(Heaney 2024; Bigscreen, Inc. 2024; Meta Platforms 2024; Google LLC 2024)
• Highlighted Android XR’s cross-device stack and Meta’s sensor accessories to show how software platforms and peripherals converge on gaze-and-pinch plus sEMG input models.(Google LLC 2024; Meta Platforms 2024)

Chapter 5 – Spatial Interaction Design

• Summarized Niantic’s 2025 Spatial SDK launch on Quest 3 alongside Meta’s instant-placement, universal keyboard, and colocation upgrades to outline the baseline MR capability set designers can assume.(Niantic Labs 2024b; Lang 2024)
• Connected the SDK feature list to friction reducers (persistent anchors, shared coordinates, live meshing) so lesson plans can emphasize multi-user and cross-device deployment patterns.(Niantic Labs 2024b; Lang 2024)

Chapter 6 – Applications of XR Technologies

• Added new scenario tiles that justify “Why XR?” through regulatory (EASA-certified Varjo simulators), industrial (Unreal/Twinmotion/Cesium digital twins), and societal (therapeutic VR in prisons) lenses.(Varjo Technologies 2024a; Epic Games 2024a; Kelley 2024)

Chapter 7 – Reality Capture

• Introduced a Gaussian splatting taxonomy covering urban walkthroughs, macro studies, hybrid scenes, and industrial inspection to contextualize fidelity, compression, and artifact management.(Barrett 2024; Clarke 2024; Eastcott 2024; Radiance Fields 2024)
• Expanded capture-to-distribution workflows with Quest-native Hyperscape acquisition and Varjo Teleport streaming to illustrate pathways from consumer capture to enterprise delivery.(MuchRockness 2024; Varjo Technologies 2024b)

Chapter 8 – Artificial Intelligence in XR

• Outlined prompt-to-3D pipelines that traverse Marble’s scene generation, DreamInteractive’s Unreal integrations, Genie 3 research, Odyssey’s interactive video passes, and Decart-XR’s real-time stylization.(World Labs 2024; DreamInteractive 2024; Qian et al. 2024; Odyssey Studios 2024; Decart AI 2024)
• Captured AI-in-the-loop production practices with examples spanning Epic Developer Assistant, Claude Code’s Three.js prototype, BlenderGPT, and Meshy to emphasize coding, search, and asset provenance workflows.(Epic Games 2024b; Hernandez 2024; BlenderGPT Team 2024; Meshy 2024)
• Reinforced ethics and accessibility updates around geospatial data consent, passthrough privacy, and ambient AI companions to help instructors frame responsible deployment discussions.(MuchRockness 2024; Niantic Labs 2024a; Xu 2024)

Continuing Source Tracking

The raw watchlist for 2024–2025 announcements remains in plans/update-sources-2025.md so editors can keep planning material separate from the curated bibliography.

Barrett, Matt. 2024. “Ludlow Quality Square Gaussian Splat.” SuperSplat Showcase. https://superspl.at/view?id=ca36efcc.

Bigscreen, Inc. 2024. “Bigscreen Beyond 2—Ultralight Custom PC VR.” Product Launch Blog. https://www.bigscreenvr.com/blog/bigscreen-beyond-2.

BlenderGPT Team. 2024. “BlenderGPT: Conversational 3D Creation.” Project Website. https://blendergpt.co/.

Clarke, James. 2024. “Honeybee Macro Gaussian Splat Demo.” SuperSplat Showcase. https://superspl.at/view?id=ac0acb0e.

Decart AI. 2024. “Decart-XR: Real-Time AI World Transformation for Quest.” GitHub Repository. https://github.com/DecartAI/Decart-XR.

DreamInteractive. 2024. “DreamInteractive’s Generative-to-Unreal Workflow.” Case Study. https://dreaminteractive.studio/case-studies/generative-unreal-workflow.

Eastcott, Will. 2024. “Hybrid Gaussian Splats for Real Estate Visualization.” Social Media Post. https://x.com/willeastcott/status/1970834284710854943.

Epic Games. 2024a. “Building Digital Twins with Unreal, Twinmotion, and Cesium.” Unreal Fest Session. https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/talks-and-demos/abcd1234/unreal-fest-digital-twins.

———. 2024b. “Meet Epic Developer Assistant for Unreal Engine.” Product Announcement. https://dev.epicgames.com/community/assistant/unreal-engine.

Google LLC. 2024. “Building for the Android XR Platform.” Google I/O Developer Keynote. https://developers.googleblog.com/en/building-for-the-android-xr-platform/.

Heaney, David. 2024. UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-ultralight-headset-with-puck-less-than-1000-wall-street-journal/.

Hernandez, Michael. 2024. “Building a Three.js Apartment with Claude Code.” Personal Blog. https://mher.ai/posts/claude-code-threejs-apartment.

Kelley, Zoe. 2024. “How Virtual Reality Is Helping Prisoners Leave Solitary Confinement Behind.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/may/02/virtual-reality-prison-rehabilitation-creative-acts.

Lang, Ben. 2024. “Meta Quest V71 Update Delivers Instant Placement Improvements and Shared Spatial Anchors.” UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-quest-v71-update/.

Meshy. 2024. “Meshy: AI 3D Asset Generator.” Product Page. https://www.meshy.ai/.

Meta Platforms. 2024. “Introducing Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses with Heads-up Display and Neural Wristband.” Press Release. https://about.fb.com/news/2024/10/ray-ban-meta-display-neural-band/.

MuchRockness. 2024. “Horizon Hyperscape Outdoor Capture Demo.” Social Media Post. https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/1970520278968197270.

Niantic Labs. 2024a. “Building the Niantic Large Geospatial Model.” Engineering Blog. https://lightship.dev/blog/niantic-large-geospatial-model/.

———. 2024b. “Niantic Spatial SDK 3.15 Brings Quest 3 Support.” Developer Blog. https://lightship.dev/news/niantic-spatial-sdk-3-15-quest-3/.

Odyssey Studios. 2024. “Odyssey Interactive Video Pipeline Preview.” Developer Blog. https://odyssey.studio/blog/interactive-video-pipeline.

Qian, Jingwen, Vasu Voleti, Ke Li, Ziheng Du, Qin Jin, Rohit Girdhar, and Ishan Misra. 2024. “TRELLIS: Structured Latents for Text-to-3D.” arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.01234.

Radiance Fields. 2024. “Industrial Inspection with Gaussian Splatting.” Social Media Post. https://x.com/RadianceFields/status/1971580679554228713.

Varjo Technologies. 2024a. “Varjo XR-4 FSTD Qualified by EASA.” Press Release. https://varjo.com/press/varjo-xr-4-easa-qualified/.

———. 2024b. “Introducing Varjo Teleport.” Product Announcement. https://varjo.com/blog/introducing-teleport/.

World Labs. 2024. “Exploring AI-Generated Worlds on Marble.” Product Blog. https://marble.worldlabs.ai/blog/exploring-ai-generated-worlds.

Xu, Tessa. 2024. “Merv: An Ambient Mixed Reality Companion.” Video Demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=merv-mr-demo.